When it comes to technology, hardware is king.
We interact with technology on a constant basis, but we never tend to place any technology that we use in a hierarchy of power. The reality is, certain products have far more authority with respect to what other technologies we use simply because of what consumer-side service they intend to deliver.
There’s a very real hierarchy of control when it comes to the technology business. At the very top of this hierarchy is hardware; the hardware provider decides what chips, operating system, and applications you start with. Then come the operating systems as these have less power than the hardware but can decide, to some extent, what applications you start with. Finally, at the bottom are applications as these are at the end of the chain.
In the battle for data, the digital age’s most valuable resource, the hardware providers sustain the highest portion of data as they know each of your interactions both on and off the web. However, the power stems beyond access to data as the hardware providers also have the power to give you your starting set of other technologies.
Notice, that applications are the bottom of the segment and yet most projects that leverage blockchain technology aim to develop applications—they have minimal power.
This is one of the most fundamental causes of why blockchain technology has such limited reach; the projects pursuing its utility have limited pull as they remain on the bottom end of the technological hierarchy.